"We were running on fumes at that point." That is how Elon Musk described 2008 to Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes. He called it the worst year of his life.
The details are bleak. Falcon 1, SpaceX's small rocket, had failed on its first three launches. Tesla was also short of cash. Most of what he had made from PayPal had gone into the two companies, and later reporting says he stayed on friends' couches and borrowed money to cover rent. That last detail comes from secondary coverage, not from Musk himself. What he said on camera was blunter: a fourth failure would have been "absolutely game over."
His Russian contacts were not interested, and Michael Griffin, who went with him, watched them grow less friendly with each meeting.
How did a man with that much money end up there? He was born in Pretoria in 1971, left South Africa for Canada as a young man, and finished degrees in physics and economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Compaq bought Zip2 in 1999 and his share was about $22 million. When eBay bought PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion in stock, he received about $175.8 million as the largest shareholder.
Then came the Moscow trip. In autumn 2001 he flew there to buy a rocket, planning to put a greenhouse on Mars as a stunt. His Russian contacts were not interested, and Michael Griffin, who went with him, watched them grow less friendly with each meeting. On the flight home Musk decided he could build the rockets himself.
SpaceX was founded on 14 March 2002 in El Segundo. Musk put in about $100 million. He hired Tom Mueller, Gwynne Shotwell and engineers from TRW and Boeing, and interviewed employees himself.
Then the failures, from 2006 to 2008, which nearly ended the company just as Tesla needed rescue too. The fourth Falcon 1 reached orbit on 28 September 2008. That December NASA awarded SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract to resupply the space station. Asked whether the contract saved the company, Musk answered, "Yeah, they did."
What followed was a ladder of firsts: Falcon 9 and Dragon in 2010, an upright booster landing in December 2015, a reflown rocket in 2017. In January 2015 SpaceX raised $1 billion at about a $12 billion valuation and announced Starlink. It acquired xAI in February 2026 and listed on Nasdaq as SPCX on 12 June 2026, with $18.7 billion of 2025 revenue and a $4.9 billion net loss. Its market value was about $1.68 trillion on 6 November 2026.
The quiet fact is how close the margin was. A company now worth trillions depended on one rocket working, in the last months its founder could pay for it.